So I’m kind of obsessed with raw honey lately. Raw means never heated, never filtered, never chemically or physically altered, straight from hard workin’ bees honey. Store-bought, free-flowing, crystal-clear honey is not raw honey. The clear honey that comes in a squeezy bear at your local grocery store has been micro-filtered and super-heated to increase shelf life and some of it can’t even really be classified as actual honey.

Raw honey contains vitamins, minerals and other superfood components. Add in all the anecdotal evidence of raw honey healing the digestive tract and increasing nutrient absorption…this stuff looks to be quite the multivitamin/multimineral supplement in sweet disguise. Just a spoonful of honey help the nutrients go down.

Raw honey can replace expensive beauty products. I should have Jessi write an in depth article about honey for beauty uses. For now though, supposedly raw honey helps balance the pH of the skin to levels that fight aging. I do know that raw honey is anti-fungal, anti-microbial, anti-viral and contains lots of bioavailable minerals, all good things and no fake crap for the skin.

Buying Local raw honey supports local farmers and is effective for seasonal allergy relief. Raw honey contains bee pollen. When you buy honey from local farmers this means that your honey contains the pollen produced by local plants. This pollen acts like a vaccine, inoculating your system against seasonal allergies. I myself have seen the allergy benefits

In this study endurance athletes liked honey even more than their highly-prized gel packs. The study indicates that using honey as a carbohydrate source during exercise significantly improved performance and power during endurance cycling trials.

Using honey, especially the raw variety seems like an obvious choice for athletes due to readily available sugars, an abundance of vitamins and minerals and other anti-inflammatory nutrients.

Traditionally used for wound care and to promote healing, raw honey is increasingly being used nowadays to heal severe burns, treat internal ulcers, as an antiseptic wound treatment and even as an acne spot treatment! Honey has been shown to be MORE effective than the current standard burn treatment, silver sulfadiazine, while being completely natural and containing all those nutrients mentioned above.

Known to increase energy levels before exercise, raw honey is also a proven natural sleep aid. The natural sugar in honey helps keep blood glucose levels steady throughout the night thereby avoiding the release of stress hormones mid-snooze. The small insulin spike that accompanies a spoonful of raw honey also signals insulin to deliver tryptophan to the brain where it is converted into melatonin. Melatonin promotes the release of growth hormone during sleep which is necessary for muscle development, bone protection and tissue repair.

Raw honey is freaking delicious. Props are due to spain-in-iowa.com for this eye (and mouth) candy:

With it, you can really expand upon the ever growing list of “paleo” and other other real food recipes. Raw honey is most definitely a source of simple sugars so moderation needs to be exercised. But as you read above, it’s not all about the sugar. Cooking with raw honey will destroy some of the important enzymes and vitamins it contains but even when combining raw honey with high heat, you’re still using a far less processed and more nutritious option than any other sweetener on the market today.

I will be attempting the Raw Vanilla Ice Cream from Honey Pacifica (from Cali but as pure as you can get) ASAP thanks to a steady supply of raw milk from the farmers market downtown. (That I feed to my dog of course since raw milk is illegal in North Carolina… winky face!)

The “raw honey” tag at Pale OMG is a dangerous query. Only perform this search under the supervision of someone that can prevent you from eating your computer. All those goodies might be “paleo” but you and I both know that you should not be eating Apple Fritters for breakfast Carrot Cake Doughnuts for dinner… at least not every day…. double winky face!